


Not Only How Far Away

by disenchanted



Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: Class Differences, Established Relationship, Literary References & Allusions, M/M, Pre-Canon, Secret Relationship, Stealth Crossover, the oversexed RAF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 14:02:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11899272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disenchanted/pseuds/disenchanted
Summary: The Battle of France comes to a close.





	Not Only How Far Away

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Not Only How Far Away (translation into Chinese)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12851721) by [stormykage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormykage/pseuds/stormykage)



> The squadron numbers are assigned at random; these are fictional squadrons. The air battles are cobbled together from various episodes in RAF memoirs, in particular Alan C. Deere's _Nine Lives_. Those of you who catch the stealth crossover will recognize the timeline doesn't quite work out, but I've handwaved it because the opportunity was too good to pass up.
> 
> Thanks to Lilliburlero for betaing and, in particular, brilliantly Scotspicking; any remaining mistakes are my own.

The human beings, now: in what direction are they,  
And how far away, would you say?  
—Henry Reed, ‘Judging Distances’

 

Collins woke, in silence, with the sense that the scramble bell had rung. It hadn’t, and couldn’t have done: he was in the dormitory hut, in a cot crammed between Marlowe’s and Bloxham-Remilly’s. Though the blackout was up Collins knew that if the squadron was asleep it was still dark. But the door to the hut was opening, letting in moonlight; Collins saw someone going out and could tell by the gait it was Farrier.

Outside Collins found Farrier in the hut’s shadow, smoking a fag. His pyjama trousers were tucked into his flying boots. Collins lighted a cigarette of his own, and by the flame of his lighter saw enough of Farrier’s expression to understand how little he was surprised that he had followed.

‘We’re up in an hour and a half,’ said Collins, who wore his wristwatch with the radium dials to bed.

Farrier gave an equivocating tilt of the head and exhaled smoke. Collins followed the smoke as it rose and knew by the spread and brightness of the stars that the day would be fine. He surrendered himself to the familiar desperation for 3:30, when their squadron would be called up for dawn patrol.

After Farrier flicked his fag-end away he cupped the back of Collins’ head and brought him forward for a kiss. It was brief, only just beyond chaste. Collins tried to go on clutching him and was gently disentangled.

 

* * *

 

It was as fine a day as Collins had thought it would be. 28 Squadron was following the patrol line up the Belgian coast, towards Ostend. No cloud was in sight; the sun shone from above and from below, where its reflection skipped through the greenish water at the coastline. The patrol had so far been uneventful, as had that morning’s, and Collins was near the height of agitation. He felt the urge to climb, but the squadron was flying low enough that astarboard he saw the ragged line of smoke marking out the front line. In the dispersal hut they had listened to Hitler make a devil of a speech on the wireless, the gist of which, according to F/O Lyons’ rough translation, was that the Germans were coming for Britain. Aye right! Collins had been struggling with nausea since he woke, but felt it must have been the lack of sleep.

Just as his stomach was settling, the voice of the squadron leader, refined and unaffected, came over the R/T: ‘Tally-ho, tally-ho, three Messerschmitts below and ahead.’

A bubble of vomit rose up Collins’ throat and was swallowed back. ‘Fuck off,’ he said. He then checked to make sure he hadn’t been transmitting; there had previously been reprimands from the Station Commander.

When he looked back up he saw the 109s on the horizon, and S/L Vicarage was on the R/T again, saying, ‘Fortis Section, attack.’

‘Fortis Leader to Leo Leader,’ said Canfield, bringing Collins and Farrier forth. ‘Message received. Fortis One, take the one on the port side; Fortis Two, the one on the starboard.’

Directly the 109s saw Fortis Section on their tails they slipped into a deep dive towards the coast, pulling apart from each other. Groaning, Collins throttled down and curved in to follow their number two. In his mirror he glimpsed a black trail blooming from their number one, and Farrier behind; then their number one spiralling.

At some point it must have hit the ground. Farrier said, ‘OK, bandit on the port side down. Fortis One to Fortis Leader, I'm following you.’

‘Right-oh,’ said Canfield. ‘Fortis Leader to Fortis Two, keep at it.’

The three of them, Canfield and Farrier and the Messerschmitts’ leader, dropped out of sight, leaving Collins alone with his 109, who was down at about angels two and flying in a straight line. Collins understood why when he saw a 110 coming at him and realised, with a startled cramping of the gut, that his target had led him back to a German-held airfield. He throttled forward just as the 110 opened fire, and heard, as he ascended, the sobering patter of bullets puncturing his undercarriage.

‘Ah, fuck,’ he said. Though he was still half in denial he was rapidly reversing course. ‘Ah fuck, bleeding Christ, you bastard little cunts—’ At which point he switched on the transmitter and said, ‘This is Fortis Two, I've been holed by—er, a 110 on the circuit round a bloody—’ ( _Fuck_ , he thought; if the Station Commander was in the Operations Room he’d have his balls.) ‘—Airfield. I've got to turn back; still flying for now, but I don't know what damage there's been.’

‘Go on, Fortis Two. We’ll see you back on the ground.’ Canfield sounded so unworried that Collins felt almost insulted. That was the manner you developed, he supposed, after a long time in the air; and anyway he wasn’t yet in flames.

Farrier said, ‘Fortis One to Fortis Two. Good luck….’

 

* * *

 

Collins returned to Biggin Hill so safely that at the end of it he felt a bit of a coward. When he swung himself out of the cockpit and onto the wing, his knees buckled; he held himself up with a palm to the fuselage. The nausea was worse than it had been in the air, and the ground crew were swarming his kite, getting underfoot. His only recompense was that he’d been right to turn back: the penguins would be working double-time to get him airborne again by last patrol. He slid onto the tarmac and wobbled out of their way only to find P/O Marjoribanks of 73 Squadron before him.

‘What happened, old chap?’ Marjoribanks had obviously just come from the Mess; there was a smear of brown sauce on his cheek.

‘Ahhh—eurgh,’ said Collins, patting his pockets for his cigarettes. ‘Chased a 109 straight back to a stolen airfield east of Ostend. Got a light, mate?’

Marjoribanks tossed over a book of matches. ‘Bad luck, old man,’ he said. ‘Did you manage to, ah, get in a few hits in yourself?’

‘Nah, no joy.’ Shooting smoke out of his nose Collins said, ‘Farrier did, he’d had one kill before I turned round. Like as not he’ll have another by the time he gets back.’

‘Gosh,’ said Marjoribanks, whose admiration was tempered with an understandable and widely-shared envy. He was losing interest in Collins; once the rest of 28 Squadron landed he would come by to continue exercising his greed for secondhand thrills. He and Farrier had been at Charterhouse together, though several years apart, and probably Farrier would tell him more about the action than anyone else. ‘That puts him in the lead for the station, doesn’t it?’

It would have been stupid for Collins to pretend he hadn’t been keeping score as assiduously as any of the other junior pilots. ‘Yes,’ he said, not without frustration; but there was also a pride that at its moment of ripeness was spoilt by the fact that there was no reason for any of the rest of them to know why Farrier’s victories were Collins’ own. It did Collins an injury to look at Marjoribanks and know better than to say, ‘Doesn’t matter, though: he belongs to me.’

As he made his way towards the Officers’ Mess Collins sucked down his fag till the end singed his fingers. He was half an hour out of the cockpit and already the thrill of being in action had been usurped by the jittery annoyance of knowing he was useless till he was in it again. The inanities of life on the ground—the eating, the sleeping, the washing, the letter-writing, the hours upon hours of readiness—had become so teeth-gnashingly boring that even being in love couldn’t make them tolerable. Yet he knew that when he saw his next black cross he would be afraid.

Would it stop, he wondered, like the initial boyish fear of being in the air had stopped? After another month or so would he not mind so much about the prospect of dying? … When he entered the Mess he saw that three officers from 73 Squadron were waving him over, so he took his plate to their table.

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t until after last patrol that Collins and Farrier were alone together. The squadron had been on four patrols a day for about two weeks now, and the exhaustion was worsening: some skipped supper and their bath and went directly to their bunks, where they would lie like corpses until 3:30. Neither Collins nor Farrier would have been able to sleep if they had wanted, so they met at one of their usual places, a hut used as a lecture-hall during the day and shut up at nights. There were two small windows, one on either side of the door: in the blackout, with the lights off and the blinds open to let in the moonlight, Collins could only just make out the lines of desks sinking into the darkness. Farrier he saw as a familiar shadow; they were used to seeing each other in silhouette.

They were crushed together, Collins’ front against Farrier’s front and Farrier’s back against the wall, when Farrier put his hand on Collins’ shoulder. ‘Slow down, won’t you,’ he mumbled. ‘My cheeky Jock.’

Collins was aware of finding it adorable to hear Farrier say things that in the mouth of any other Englishman would have fucked him off. He wondered if that was stupidity or devotion, and if the former or the latter was more useful to him now. Farrier was a hell of a man: if he took off towards Berlin Collins would be at his wing, and he never let Collins get everything he wanted.

‘We haven’t got the time,’ said Collins, resisting the urge to check his wristwatch over Farrier’s shoulder. They were still clothed, and Collins felt that after about a week of celibacy he was entitled to want them to be less so.

‘Oh I see. Do you want to go to your bunk?’

Challengingly Collins said, ‘I want to suck your cock.’

‘Oo-err.’ With Farrier’s lips against his own Collins could feel that he was smiling. ‘They don’t do that in the infantry.’

_Actually_ , Collins was about to say, but he searched his memory and realised the parties he’d been to were mostly Navy; the only infantryman he could remember was a corporal who’d sat on the sofa looking vinegary while everyone else was dancing. Farrier had brought Collins to a queer party once, about a month ago, in London, and after talking to Farrier’s old friends Collins got the impression that something about himself aligned very satisfactorily with Farrier’s ‘type’. He hadn’t been able to tell what it was except that it wasn’t his nationality. What was funny was that Farrier did seem to seriously care how Collins was received; it was as if he was intending to make him a fixture. After the party they’d fucked like they’d just been married.

God, Christ, thought Collins, dropping to his knees. If there was anything he wanted to make it through the war for, it would be setting up house: finding a decent gaff in London and flying speed tests out of Duxford, going home every evening to draw Farrier’s bath. It was only that no honeymoon (he thought this while making an immodest noise around Farrier’s cock) could make him stupid enough to forget that this war would be longer than the last one.

Farrier, with his hands in Collins’ hair, had gone inarticulate, or anyway was letting himself seem so. When Collins took him deep enough to get his nose pressed into the hair above his cock he felt the twitching of his belly as he gasped. Go on, Collins thought at him, go on, go on— When Farrier finished Collins swallowed, finding it less difficult than wiping spunk off the floor, or his uniform.

Rising to kiss him Collins saw how tired Farrier looked. His eyes were closed, his mouth was grim; he might have dropped off to sleep just then. But he allowed Collins to kiss him anyway, and reached down to unfasten Collins’ trousers.

 

* * *

 

Sleep, Collins had learned, came easiest to Farrier in the dispersal hut. While the squadron stood at readiness—that morning Canfield was playing bridge with Omnis Section; Lyons measured pieces of wood for his model Gladiator; Marlowe and Jennison attempted table tennis—Collins and Farrier lay together in their Mae Wests on the cot in the corner, Farrier’s head on Collins’ shoulder. Not for the first time Collins envied him: Collins was the sort of person who, once woken in the morning, could not help staying awake. He had drifted off while lying like this only once before, and after about ten minutes flung himself up out of a dream that the station was being strafed. So he thought about things; on the wireless Vera Lynn sang about fields of grain and country lanes, and Collins went through several well-worn recollections of Farrier’s arse spread, Farrier’s mouth on his cock, the arches of Farrier’s feet and the hair on his thighs. Surely that was what she meant when she sang about England?

Farrier was up and clear-eyed the moment the telephone rang. Besides Collins and Farrier springing from the cot, the pilots were still, waiting in silence: the table tennis ball skittered across the floor. No sooner had the operator’s mouth begun to form the word ‘scramble’ than they were out of the hut and sprinting across the tarmac. There was no time to say goodbye, but Collins, who ran faster, glanced over his shoulder and caught Farrier’s gaze. That, and Farrier’s voice on the R/T, would sustain him.

 

* * *

 

What they had been scrambled to intercept was a formation of twenty Junkers 88s just inland of Dunkirk. Coming down towards the formation from angels two-five, 28 Squadron had the advantage; S/L Vicarage gave the order to break and engage, and their Brownings were firing before the 88s realised they were being jumped. One of the bandits went down at once; it was Lyons’ kill, Collins noted jealously. By the time Collins had got within range of his target, the 88s were returning fire with their rear guns.

‘Come on,’ muttered Collins, watching his 88 slide in and out of the ring of his gunsight. He was turning, hard; the cloud below was like a white wall rising up on his port side. ‘Come on, stay still for me—’

He’d scarcely pressed the firing button when a Spitfire came spinning across his field of vision, aflame. He could just make out the letter to the right of the roundel before the downed kite blurred into the cloud: ‘J’ was Bloxham-Remilly.

Lyons, more hysterical than Collins had heard him before, screeched: ‘Messerschmitts! Above and behind, my eight o’clock—Christ!’ And as Collins curved back into the fray he found himself flying towards the six Me 109s who had come out of the sun and caught Bloxham-Remilly unawares. He dived just in time to see tracers swirling overhead, missing him by a matter of feet. Then the cockpit darkened as the 109s passed over him.

‘Ah no—o,’ said Collins, without really hearing himself. For he had got to throttle forward and climb, turn back, bear down on the 109s from above: there was nothing else to be done. There was that and there was cowardice. Over the R/T he said: ‘This is Fortis Two, I’m on their leader.’

As Collins angled down to get the 109 leader in his sights he recognised that he was suppressing, successfully, the urge to look for Farrier. He was flying or he was downed, he would live or he would die; either way there was his spirit. Collins kept his eyes on his target and pressed the firing button. Flashes burst across the 109, but there was no smoke, no flame, and then the bastard was diving into the cloud. Collins could have wept. Rather than do so he dived also.

He came out of the cloud at angels five to see that the thin space between ground and cloud was greasy with smoke from canisters of oil being burned by the retreating armies. At his eleven o’clock there was Marlowe on a 109, and at his three o’clock Jennison ditto, only Jennison had two other 109s on his tail and was weaving desperately to avoid their fire.

Before Collins could quite question his own heroism he cried, ‘Grandis Two, break to starboard, go, go,’ and, once Jennison was out of the way, opened fire on the 109s that had been chasing him.

Again his targets lighted up with the flickers of the incendiary rounds, again they flew onwards unharmed. Behind them Lyons came gliding down, trailing smoke from his port wing; he jettisoned his canopy and rolled his kite onto its back, but smacked into the tail as he baled out. When after a few moments his chute spread Collins thanked God, then throttled forward to get the 109s in range again. He saw it in his mirror when Lyons’ Spit went up in flames.

 

* * *

 

In the Officers’ Mess that night there was egg and bacon, and 28 Squadron ate heartily; once the flash of physical and psychological power that accompanied fear had faded they found they were hungry. Though of course they were all sorry about Bloxham-Remilly, and waited worriedly to see whether Lyons would make it back to the station, they knew that allowing yourself too much pity was the quickest way to get the wind up. They talked about the sortie the same way they would have done if nobody had been shot down: animatedly, ragging on one another while denying that they themselves had done anything imperfectly. But once their stomachs had been filled, their tiredness began to show in their long blinks and lazy posture. Farrier ate in silence while Collins talked seriously with Marlowe about the weaknesses of various Luftwaffe bombers.

Before they went to their bunks Collins and Farrier smoked a last cigarette outside the dormitory hut. The sky was grey-black: no stars showed, only the waning moon, hazy behind a layer of cloud. The air was cool and damp as autumn. In the distance there was the whirr of engines as 73 Squadron, who had been scheduled for night readiness, took off.

Unprovoked, Farrier said, ‘You’re a decent pilot, Collins.’

‘Oh no I’m not,’ said Collins, laughing with an uncharacteristic viciousness. ‘I ran out of ammunition before I got a single kill. All I could do was chase them round till we all ran out of petrol.’

‘Yes, well,’ said Farrier, and blew a lungful of smoke towards the moon, which for a moment then held his attention. It was bright enough that Collins saw how the mist around it swirled.

Against his upturned face Collins felt a few drops of rain. He hoped that in view of the unfavourable conditions Control would order 73 Squadron to turn back.

 

* * *

 

The rain went on: 28 Squadron woke at the usual time only to be told they had been released from duty until next dawn patrol. Before they returned to their bunks for three or four hours more, Farrier came round to lean against Collins’ locker and puff a little on his pipe, farcically dignified.

‘What-ho,’ said Farrier, chewing on his pipe’s stem. He was often serious, but when he wasn’t he had a look like he was amused by something he felt quite certain you wouldn’t understand. ‘What say we go to London this evening? I know a nightclub or two that might be all right.’

‘Only if you’re buying,’ said Collins. They shared a quiet laugh that was ostensibly about Collins’ prevarication but in fact was about how funny it was that Collins had got to pretend to prevaricate. What Farrier had said was a proposition, and if they were alone Collins would have pulled him into bed and had him at once. It would be hours before they were alone—they would sleep, they would eat, motor to the railway station, take the train into town—but until they took off the next morning they would not be in mortal danger, so it was bearable to wait. Anticipation of a thing you were sure to get was the best of all varieties.

Farrier, turning away, smiling as he puffed, said, ‘Be on best behaviour and I might.’

 

* * *

 

They were not the only pilots at Biggin Hill who saw an opportunity to go to London. When they boarded the train (Collins had bought a first-class ticket knowing that Farrier would have happily sat in second) they were joined by Marjoribanks and another junior pilot from 73 Squadron. Collins’ only satisfaction in this was catching Farrier’s brief look of annoyance before he greeted the intruders: Farrier wouldn’t have let it slip if he hadn’t wanted Collins to see.

‘Oh yes we’re going to the Windmill,’ explained Marjoribanks brightly, once they were _en route_. ‘Carstairs here knows a chap who knows the girls and says he’ll introduce us. I don’t expect they’ll let us get away with anything, but I don’t mind either way.’

Carstairs told Marjoribanks, ‘No, they wouldn’t let _you_ get away with anything, but it isn’t their morals, it’s your face.’

Collins was as capable as any other young man of talking about women. He had an intellectual appreciation of them, even if it never translated to physical desire, and it was easy to pick up the right lines. But in front of Farrier and Farrier’s old friend and Farrier’s old friend’s old friend, he was inhibited. He rubbed his hands into his eyes; he was tired, he hadn’t been able to get back to sleep, he’d spent the morning lying in his cot waiting to hear Bloxham-Remilly snoring and then remembering why he wouldn’t, and shocking himself by thinking for a second that at least the hut would be quieter.

‘Where did you say you were taking me?’ Collins asked Farrier.

‘Casanova’s,’ said Farrier.

‘But the girls at Casanova’s are fully clothed,’ said Carstairs. ‘Look here, come join us tonight, just for a bit.’

With a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth, Collins said, ‘Why not, Farrier?’

‘Oh but Farrier’s _above_ women,’ said Marjoribanks. ‘Morally I mean, not physically, ha-ha. When he was Head of School the headmaster’s daughter was _furiously_ in love with him—absolutely maniacal Ophelia of a girl, radish-red whenever she saw him on the cricket pitch—and he cut her _dead_ , he said he’d an obligation to the school first and foremost.’

‘Which you only knew,’ said Farrier, ‘because you’d a habit of lingering in McMaster’s study listening in to the prefects, then repeating the rumours to other small spotty boys— It was McMaster you fagged for, wasn’t it?’

Marjoribanks said to Collins, ‘Come with us if you like, and leave Farrier alone; we shan’t jeopardise his virtue.’

It was only when he and Farrier were in the cab they’d hailed from Victoria Station that Collins realised of course Marjoribanks and Carstairs knew, of course they all knew. The offer had only been made to save Collins from an embarrassment to which Farrier, being who he was, was immune. Collins must have been making a face: Farrier put his hand on his thigh.

 

* * *

 

The address Farrier had given the cabbie appeared at first to be a chemist's off the Tottenham Court Road, one in a line of nondescript shopfronts stretching down the street towards the wood-panelled local on the corner. From the left breast pocket of his tunic, beneath his wings, Farrier produced the latchkey that opened the small door to the side of the chemist's; up the narrow staircase, to the left of the second-storey landing, was a low-ceilinged bedsit containing a brass-framed bed, a sink and gas ring, and a single worn armchair by a dark fireplace. The lamp by the bed made the room yellow, but the window showed the wet blue midday. This wasn’t, Collins knew, where Farrier lived; Farrier had once let slip that his family had a townhouse off St James’ Square.

There was silence as Farrier locked the door, closed the curtains, pulled off his boots. Collins felt quite shy: they’d only fucked in a bed three times, and each of those times he’d been pished. Farrier seemed to be fully aware of his hesitance, and luxuriating in it; he tossed his overcoat onto the armchair and stood waiting.

With an imperiousness he hadn’t intended Collins said at last, ‘Come here, Farrier.’

It was absurd by any standard how long Collins and Farrier were content to kiss. Clothing was removed, but piece by piece, slowly; they fell onto the bed and clung to each other, fitting themselves against each other first this way, then that way. There was a weight and firmness to Farrier’s body that continually surprised Collins, who so often only saw him or heard him, and when that weight came to bear down against him Collins welcomed the pressure on his ribcage, the jab of his back into the mattress. He felt the breath was being pressed out of him.

_Cannae—_ , he hazily thought; if he were going to die it had got to be done under other circumstances. Yet he went on kissing Farrier, inhaling nothing but Farrier’s damp tobaccoy breath and faded cologne. Farrier allowed himself without impatience to be kissed, and when Collins, naked, pushed him down till his face was level with his cock, he was equally amenable to doing what had been suggested. So there it was aye there, after the waiting, it was. Collins watched Farrier, and Farrier, knowing he was being watched, looked up now and then with an expression like he’d caught Collins doing something improper but was deigning not to tell. When Collins tried to tell Farrier to stop before it was all over Farrier laughed, after which his face, his lovely face with the lines around the mouth and around the eyes, was streaked with incontrovertible evidence of Collins’ affection.

‘Naughty naughty naughty naughty,’ said Farrier lazily. While Collins was lying dumb he retrieved his cigarettes and his silver Dunhill lighter and made an offering of them. Collins took a fag between his fingers and the lighter in his palm, but with his other hand cupped the back of Farrier’s neck and, in a moment of randy boldness, kissed the wet spots on Farrier’s face.

After that Collins was more peaceful. Farrier, however, had clearly been deeply affected; he kept stiff doing nothing but watching Collins smoke. Stroking his palm down Collins’ chest he said, ‘You must understand I’ve stopped minding about people…I mean the entire structure of things. It isn’t relevant to me any longer.’

‘Is that what ought to happen?’ asked Collins, who had not yet got past the fellatio.

‘No,’ said Farrier. ‘Well, up to a point. One isn’t meant to be in agony about having seen one’s estranged wife dining at Foppa’s with her lover while one’s leading a convoy escort, for instance. That’s how a chap gets the wind up. In that regard it’s worse to be overly normal than it is to be queer. What had you asked? Oh yes…But human culture doesn’t disappear when one is in an aeroplane; one _is_ in an aeroplane. The British are British, the Germans are German, one’s squadron leader leads one’s squadron. One’s meant to mind about that.’

‘Ah, but you do still bother about it, then. You fly in formation, you answer to Fortis One. That’s a bit of human culture for you.’

‘Mm, I suppose _so_.’ Farrier brushed his thumb across Collins’ cheek. ‘But you see—it’s as if I’ve run out of petrol and have gone on gliding. “Turning and turning in a widening gyre”—as an Irishman once said.’ With that he seemed to have said everything he’d intended, and was quiet; he kissed Collins’ shoulder and traced circles around his navel with a fingertip.

Once Collins had finished his cigarette he dropped it in the ashtray on the bedside table and exchanged it for the tin of Vaseline which Farrier, earlier, had pointedly placed there. Already Collins was hard enough for it again; he knelt in the centre of the bed, hitched Farrier’s legs up around his waist and fucked him as if he hadn’t been touched in months.

Farrier only ever looked like he was mortal when he was being buggered. Colour started in his cheeks and bled downwards; his jaw hung open, he sometimes forgot to swallow his spit and drooled down the side of his face. His eyes were dark in the dim light, but cleared of all reserve. Collins knew by the total unselfconsciousness of Farrier’s satisfaction that he was giving himself up to him: the price was that he understood, as he hadn’t before, that if Farrier went down he would go down. God, where had he heard that line before? he asked himself, wiping sweat from his brow. The widening gyre, the widening— Something, something— ‘But not, not the six hundred’...? No, that wasn’t it, Tennyson wasn’t Irish.

When Farrier tried to pull at his cock Collins slapped his hand away and fucked him so that he finished without being touched. As Farrier shuddered beneath and around him Collins thought he’d never seen an Englishman live, even for a moment, so much in his own body: it was like he was in the depths of privation and had thrown off his dignity, finding it an unnecessary weight. He did seem lighter in Collins’ arms, but to Collins that was no comfort.

 

* * *

 

It seemed to have taken about a second for the hour hand on Collins’ wristwatch to skip from twelve to four. Sighing and groaning, cracking their necks as they stretched, he and Farrier put on their blues and shouldered down the sodden street to the Lamb and Cross. There they drank several pints of porter each at a table in a dark corner, protected by the veil that falls around two people who have recently shared each other’s bodies. They laced their ankles together and talked about the market town in Berwickshire where Collins and his three sisters, all elder, were raised: the steep, short high street with its baker and butcher and, in a place of prominence, the bank their father managed; the barley fields, the wheat fields, the untamed wood; in summer the week-end trips to Dunbar, where the ruins of a mediaeval castle stood on the seacliffs, inhabited by cormorants and gulls.

Farrier could sometimes be prevailed upon to share stories of his own past, which reached heights of splendour and strangeness that Collins’ never did, but he rarely volunteered them, and that afternoon Collins refrained from prising them out. Collins knew, now, all of Farrier’s best stories: he had been there for them, on his wing. He was content to answer Farrier’s questions, knowing that Farrier was asking not because he was really curious but because he was greedy enough to want Collins-the-boy and Collins-the-civilian and Collins-the-pilot all.

They returned to the bedsit before they were drunk enough that they risked being hungover the next morning. Though the weather was so poor that neither of them believed the Luftwaffe would bother to send out their bombers that night, Farrier fixed the blackout before they fell into bed again. The second time it was Farrier who buggered Collins; they lay on their sides and moulded their bodies together, Farrier’s chest to Collins’ back and Collins’ leg slung back over Farrier’s thigh. When Farrier was near to coming he said so, and Collins said, ‘Go on then, come _in_ me, I don’t care,’ and listened to the precious daft noises Farrier made as he did.

Having composed himself, Farrier rolled Collins onto his back, spread his legs and put his head between them. Collins expected that Farrier was going to suck him off; when it became clear that he was doing something quite different Collins sat bolt upright and, scandalised, said, ‘ _Farrier_!’

Farrier laughed so deeply and at such length that his toes began to wiggle. When he spoke it was in gasps between spasms of laughter. ‘Oh heavens! Collins, Collins…it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t, oh— Christ on _earth_. Collins, _really_ …. Well,’ he went on, becoming more serious, ‘if you feel that way about it.’

‘No— No, I don’t, it isn’t that.’ The colour was rising in Collins’ face, but he was resolved to accept what Farrier offered him. ‘If it doesn’t bother you, you haven’t to stop.’

So when Collins, for the third time, finished, he did so with Farrier’s tongue in his arse, feeling that he knew a great deal more about sex than he had done that morning. Afterwards, as he and Farrier smoked, he said, ‘All right, that’s it, I’m dead done. I can’t do it anymore.’

‘What?’ said Farrier blandly. ‘Did you hear that? Must be a draught in here.’

‘Go fuck yourself,’ said Collins.

‘Oh, was it— Was it you? Did you say something? What did you say—you can’t what?’

‘I can’t _fuck_ anymore, Farrier, you cunt, I can’t; I’m dry as as a bone, if I were a milch cow I’d be taken round back and shot. Or a riglin I suppose I’d be, strictly speaking….’

‘I know a captain in the Grenadiers,’ said Farrier, ‘who said he had once gone five times in a night. Surely you wouldn’t let the infantry best us.’ But he had already relented; out of the two of them he was the older and tireder, and seemed grateful to at last lie back and put his head on Collins’ shoulder.

They would not sleep there: they would take the last train back to Biggin Hill, where they would sleep in their bunks and wake for dawn patrol. They hadn’t yet spent a night in the same bed, and Collins reflected, without feeling anything in particular, that they might never. That was their lot; and they were lucky, so frightfully lucky. How many village boys looked up at 28 Squadron passing overhead and prayed they would grow up to fly Spitfires of their own? How many men who had spent their youth between the wars saw Collins in the street and damned that they’d been born when they were? And here he was, P/O Collins, twenty-four and with perfect eyesight, sorry for himself because he wanted a longer night with his lover. Well! They all wanted one thing or another. If he was going to survive his next sortie it ought to be for nothing, he thought, but to fly again.

 

* * *

 

Lyons did make it back. After they returned from dawn patrol 28 Squadron found him in the Officers’ Mess, a bandage covering the stitches on his temple and, as he pulled up his shirt to demonstrate, a continent-sized bruise on his flank. He was in good spirits, but only because he had been given the go-ahead to keep flying: in low tones he told the other junior pilots that the British line had shrunk so that all it encompassed was an area of about a hundred square miles between Dunkirk, Nieuport and Poperinghe. This was no graceful retreat; the B.E.F. had been whipped. Order was breaking down, and all that remained to be seen was whether an evacuation could be effected. Lyons had had to bully his way onto a destroyer bringing soldiers across the Channel.

What struck Collins was how the material world seemed to change. Not morally; it was only that the distances between objects grew larger or shorter, the sunlight warmer or cooler, the air thicker or softer. He minded well Chamberlain coming on the wireless to say, ‘I know you will all play your part with calmness and courage.’ Collins had been, then, a cadet who wanted nothing so much as to go to war. _By God I will_ , he had thought— _with courage anyway._

When he strapped himself into his Spit and took off for their second patrol he felt for the first time what he’d once believed a pilot would always feel: that somehow he and everything he perceived were in communion. It was him and his kite, and him and his kite and Farrier and Canfield, and Fortis Section and the squadron, and the squadron and the station, the station and the RAF, the RAF and Britain; Britain and the sky.

The shallow waters off the French coast were as brightly blue-green as he had ever seen. The sun was out again; so were the Luftwaffe. Over the R/T came the familiar warning: ‘Tally-ho, tally-ho, six Messerschmitts above and ahead at my one o’clock. Leo Leader to Fortis Leader, Grandis Leader: we’ll have Fortis and Grandis attack.’

‘Fortis Leader to Fortis Section,’ said Canfield, ‘break and engage.’

Though the midday light was in his eyes Collins climbed till he was at angels two-seven, above his 109 and on its six. He tipped the nose of his kite down and held his breath. Directly he got the 109 in his sights Farrier came on the R/T, saying, ‘Fortis One to Fortis Two, break to port.’

Collins broke to port. As he did he glimpsed another 109 astarboard, and Farrier on its tail; the 109 dived and Farrier went after it, lowering till he had passed out of Collins’ field of vision. Ah, he thought dumbly. That 109 had been on him, and Farrier was the only one who had noticed. God bless buggery, he supposed. Without further ado he proceeded in his pursuit of the original target.

The second time round the process was wholly mechanical, and beautiful for being so. He breathed; his engine whirred. When the silhouette of the 109 was centered in his gunsight he pressed the firing button and watched the incendiaries sparkle across the length of the fuselage.

Pale smoke bled from the rear of the cockpit; then the smoke was black, an enormous clinging cloud, and flame expanded from its center outwards. There was no cloud into which the 109 could disappear: Collins watched it spiral down the twenty thousand feet till it hit the water.

‘This is Fortis Two,’ he transmitted. He had never felt more glorious or more awake. ‘I’ve got a 109 down.’

Farrier said, ‘Fortis One to Control, I can confirm the kill. No need to rest on your laurels, Fortis Two: there are two bandits above and ahead, at your three o’clock.’

Oh God! thought Collins, throttling forward. He remembered: Yeats, it was! One of those dire poems of the last war, all blood and lost innocence and something to do with the sun. Turning and turning in the widening gyre / Something something something / Whatsit whatsit, the centre cannot hold… Unable to recall what had been rhymed with ‘hold’ his subconscious suggested, in a bright music-hall voice: ‘And in the face of certain death / Our Tommy’s jolly bold!’

Then his thoughts fell again into the metre of flight, which was unlike any other.

‘Fortis Two to Fortis One,’ said Collins, ‘I’m taking the 109 on the starboard side.’

Farrier, approaching from below, said, ‘Right-oh. Then I’ll take the one on the port.’

 

* * *

 

The squadron’s log for that date read:

S/L Vicarage —  1 Me 110

F/L Canfield — 2 Me 109

F/L Farrier — 1 Me 109

F/O Lyons — 1 Me 109 (PROBABLE)

P/O Collins — 2 Me 109

F/Sgt Jennison — 1 Me 110 (PROBABLE)

UNCLAIMED by any one pilot — 1 Me 109

 

* * *

 


End file.
